Will universal postcodes simplify delivery?

Will universal postcodes simplify delivery? According to techcrunch.com, “London-based addressing platform startup, what3words, which has created a universal postcode/zip code alternative aimed at simplifying location sharing, has taken in new funding led by logistics company Aramex”.

Presently, countries do not share a common postcode/zipcode format, making it more difficult for developers of logistics and courier software to apply common rules to administrate zones throughout the world. A universal postcode format would make it easier to setup a worldwide location lookup system for courier software. what3words’ core idea is to divide the global map up into 57 trillion 3mx3m squares” and assigning each a unique string of three words this will in effect replace zip codes/postcodes with a universal and more accurate alternative.

techcrunch.com reports that “Its lead investor is intending to use the system in its eCommerce fulfillment operations across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. And the Series B funding will in part go towards supporting the launch of an Arabic version of its addressing system”. So instead of a string of letters and numbers, addressing will look more like this: rocket.talents.pans. It will be available in multiple versions of the system for different languages.

According to 3words “Using words means non-technical people can accurately find any location and communicate it more quickly, more easily and with less ambiguity than any other system like street addresses, postcodes, latitude & longitude or mobile short-links”.

So Will universal postcodes simplify delivery? Well 3words claim that 75% of the world (135+ countries) suffers from bad addressing and that poor addressing costs businesses billions of dollars and hampers the growth and development of entire nations. Further more they claim that 4 billion people are invisible and are unable to receive deliveries.

With this new investment the startup says other plans on launching a voice recognition product in the smartphone, wearables and automotive sectors — allowing for location sharing to be verbal to further increase efficiencies.

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